The present invention relates to a display system for displaying the price of merchandise in a store, and in particular, to a display system for use in a store having a computer, point-of-sale terminals, and product code readers at the point-of-sale terminals.
Systems employing product codes and point-of-sale terminals having automatic readers for reading such product codes have been proposed for use in retail stores in order to reduce labor costs associated with marking a price on each item of merchandise and with manually entering the price at the point-of-sale terminals. Such systems have not, however, gained widespread acceptance. Consumers have objected to such systems because each item of merchandise is marked with a code rather than a price, and they are thus unable to compare the actual charged price with a marked price. As a consequence, retailers have not accepted such systems because the electronic equipment involved is expensive, and since it is necessary to continue to manually mark prices on merchandise to please consumers, there is not a sufficient savings in labor costs to warrant the purchase of such systems.
It has been proposed to use electronic price displays in association with product code systems of the type described above. U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,886 entitled "Electronic Price Display Unit", issued to Ronald Murl Sundelin, discloses electronic display units that are located throughout a store, adjacent the items for sale, and that are connected to the computer controlling the price charged to the consumer. The display units are connected in parallel to the data lines from the computer and each must have a distinct address code and circuitry which will accept pricing information from the computer only when accompanied by that address code. The computer must therefore transmit both pricing information and the address code of the display unit at which the pricing information is to be displayed. While such a system overcomes some of the problems mentioned above, by assuring the consumer that the price displayed is the same as that which is charged to the consumer, the requirement of an address code to each display has added to the expense of such systems, since it is necessary to program each display unit in advance with its distinct address and to incorporate the additional circuitry within the display unit so that it receives only properly addressed signals.